George H.W. Bush is a phenomenal person. What a life he’s leading. Nonetheless, Men’s Health stunned me. It’s similiar to having ‘Erkyl’ on the cover.

I’m a reading junkie and am most disappointed to see hype overcome substance, even in that arena.

Coverboy, my butt: he deserves his own special issue!

Men’s Health magazine had PE Obama on their November cover. A magazine which shows individuals epitomizing health, fitness, etc., on their cover has PE Obama!

I’d written my displeasure in this magazine, pandering to politics and playing up a candidate. Below is my displeasure and less-than-impressive response.

Miss or Sir,

Hello. Being a dedicated reader to your magazine I was offended by your Sen. Barack Obama cover.

Your other covers show individuals who epitomize healthy lifestyles/living.

What WAS nice about Men’s Health is you steered away from political leanings, agendas.

Sen. Obama is a 47 year old politician. A smoker, an individual who was never a stand out or part of organized team sports for that matter. I spent half my 33 years in Colorado and am still a decent surfer.

Sen. Obama spent a majority of his life in Indonesia, Hawaii. He was recently photographed “Body surfing”. The same things 10 year old kids from the Midwest do when on vacation at the beach. A real “talent”.

Furthermore, Sen. Obama is a former cocaine addict.
George W. Bush is also a former cocaine addict though is still able to run a 7 minute mile. Perhaps he should be on your next front cover (insert sarc).

Again, your breaking your own rules for political
pandering is very disappointing. I’ll no longer be a reader/subscriber to your magazine.

Thank you.

On Mon, 11/3/08, ReaderService wrote:

From: ReaderService
Subject: Men’s Health: Obama cover
To:
Date: Monday, November 3, 2008, 7:45 PM
To our readers:

In the weeks since the November issue of Men’s Health hit mailboxes and newsstands, there has been an extraordinary outpouring of mail concerning our choice for the cover: Barack Obama. Some of you were excited to see a man you admired, some were grateful to learn about the presidential candidate from an MH perspective, and some of you felt betrayed by what you saw as a politically charged choice for the cover of your generally a-political magazine. Our selection of Senator Obama for the cover was based on two things:

1) he’s a man in the public eye, and worthy of a profile in Men’s Health, and
2) he’s a man squarely in our readers’ demographic who embodies many of the health, fitness, and success practices this magazine espouses.
So, in placing him on our cover, we were endorsing a lifestyle, and a record of achievement, not necessarily a candidate. That choice, ultimately, is every voter’s, alone. But as the profile clearly states, you don’t have to vote for Barack Obama the politician to learn something from Barack Obama the man. If you don’t agree with that choice, we invite you to enjoy the other 206 pages in the magazine, and take the usual measure of “useful stuff” from them. If we’ve caused you grief, our apologies. That’s not our usual approach to reader service. The December issue, we pledge, will be quite Obama-free.

Best regards,
The Editors of Men’s Health

I do appreciate your response though I still will not be reading Men’s Health in the future.

Your piece on Obama is a fluff piece. It’s too bad you didn’t inquire as to why Sen. Obama chose to go back to his hotel and work out rather than meeting/shaking hands with Iraqi troops. I believe that’s “45 minutes” he could’ve put to better use!

You went as far as to put in bold, “20 Heroes of Health & Fitness”. Mentioning Sen. Obama in the same sentence as Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong. Uhmmm, yeah. O.K.

Sen. Obama is “worthy” of a profile in Men’s Health. Why? How? The guy can’t even bowl!

1 of the reasons you’ve stated below in having Sen. Obama as your cover was for “Endorsing a candidate”, err, I meant his, “lifestyle”.

In endorsing “the man”, why hadn’t the picture been of Sen. Obama in workout clothing? Doing reps. Running. Something. Instead the guy was in a shirt & tie. Hmmm. Interesting look for a cover person of a health and fitness magazine.

Men’s Health has been around for 20 years now. Why hadn’t you approached more worthy faces in the spotlight? Television actor, now deceased Eddie Albert. Mr. Albert had an incredible workout regimen well into his late 80’s.

If wanting the “Presidential” treatment, the late Pres. Gerald Ford was in phenomenal shape into his latter years. He’d been a fantastic high school and college multi-sport athlete who was pirsued by a couple professional sports organizations.

What about JC Watts? A businessman, former Oklahoma politician and CFL player. His resume reads A LOT thicker than Sen. Obama’s and has been able to keep the same job for greater than 4 years, again surpassing Sen. Obama’s ‘accomplishments’.

Barack Obama is a smoker. Former cocaine addict. Either one of these addiction’s shouldn’t “Embody” your cover. Then again, Men’s Health is apparently buying into the “Change” mantra as well..

It’s been a minute since I reviewed the full standard for classified data, but I think as of 2003, any data that would be classified as Secret or higher can only exist on approved Trusted Systems, which exist on completely segregated networks. So there’s no way that RIM would meet those requirements.

So for anything that Obama COULD communicate via a non Trusted System, the Blackberry meets the criteria set forth.

Sorry if my first comment was a bit unclear.

Oh, yes… I should have made it clear that it was not secure for classified data! I’m speaking solely about sensitive data, or personal data (the sort of stuff that he would probably communicate via email). Sorry that my comment wasn’t as clear as it should have been

Ratatosk, as someone who has architected secure systems for DoD, I’m quite positive this isn’t true. From looking at the RIM site, it appears the server is certified as FIPS 140-2, which is sufficient for “sensitive but unclassified” only.